Published in Scientific Papers. Series D. Animal Science, Vol. LXVII, Issue 1
Written by Mihail Alexandru GRAS, Catalin DRAGOMIR
The evolutionary adaptation of the ruminant to convert pasture to animal products may have been successful, but ruminant production has an unwanted by-product (greenhouse gases), that is detrimental to the environment. The greenhouse effect is a term used to highlight the contribution of certain emitted gases to the warming of the Earth's atmosphere. The gases responsible for the greenhouse effect are: water, carbon dioxide, methane, ozone. Of the total GHG emissions in 2021, 10.7% were emitted by the agricultural sector. In developed countries, numerous research projects have been funded over time by which emission factors (of greenhouse gases) associated with various activities carried out at the level of a farm (e.g., feeding, manure management) or various influencing factors of them (e.g., the average temperature of the area). The present study aims to analyze characteristics of 19 carbon footprint estimation tools, developed and used all around the world, and to set the most suitable system for estimation on the ruminant farms level.
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